"We best get going. How fast can you pack a suitcase?"
Sherlock's voice was too loud, still filled with nervous, restless energy which hadn't left him since the swimming pool. John hadn't the energy to be annoyed. His mind was clouded with a fug of exhaustion.
"What are you talking about? We're soaking. We've been through hell and back. Don't I get one good nights sleep?"
Sherlock paused for a second. He looked down at John's face, his eyes trying to re-align their frames of reference.
"Do you think he is just going to stop?" Sherlock's voice got louder. He paced about disarranging the flat, as if looking for something. John stood motionless, in the midst of this, dread seeping into his bones. The chlorinated water running from his hair to form a droplet on the end of his nose. "Pack your bag!" Sherlock was shouting now. John acquiesced silently and made his way upstairs.
When John came downstairs, his hair was towelled and was in dry clothes. He still smelt strongly of chlorine but he looked less like he had just swum in from a plane crash. Sherlock was waiting in the hall, coat and scarf on and a leather hold-all in his hand.
"You took your time." Sherlock spoke with and air of grievance.
"Sorry" John paused and stood in the hallway for a moment in silence.
"Put your coat on I've ordered a cab" Sherlock was shifting his weight from foot to foot, breathing heavily. His voice was calmer now.
"Where are we going?"
"To my parents," Sherlock coughed awkwardly. "Mycroft's idea. I hope you don't mind."
"No..." John's eyes flickered towards Sherlock's. They met. John's breath caught. There was something in Sherlock's expression that made John feel odd. "... I'm quite curious to be truthful."
John shrugged on a jacket and they walked downstairs. He wondered what Sherlock's parents would think when confronted with the two of them, exhausted and drenched in the exotic perfume of chlorine, dynamite and anxious sweat. Then again, they were Sherlock's and Mycroft's parent. They were probably used to it by now.
"Where do they live?"
"Mid-Wales" John had been picturing a stately home somewhere in the home-counties, Agatha Christie country.
The cab was waiting when they got downstairs. Sherlock directed it to Paddington.
"What's the time?"
John checked "Half four" he groaned internally "in the morning." somewhat superfluously.
"Good we can catch the first train." John groaned, out loud this time, and slumped down in his seat.
Almost an hour later, they were sitting in the, spookily empty, terminus at Paddington. Well, John was sitting. Sherlock was pacing. John felt rather serene in his haze of exhaustion.
"Its unlike you to be so nervous." He addressed his still pacing companion.
"Its not me he's going to hurt." This seemed an atypical line of though for a self-defined sociopath.
"I didn't think you cared...?"
"Neither did I." Sherlock's voice was quiet now, almost pensive. The slender detective sprang up suddenly. John's heart raced but he was glad to see some animation in his friend.
"The platforms up... lets go." and they were off, John almost jogging to make up for the discrepancy in leg length.
The train was eerily empty. The morning light shone golden into the carriages. They found a table. Sherlock looked strangely statuesque. His skin looked like marble with a gentle golden sheen. He stretched languidly with his long legs out on the opposite seat. John noticed he was wearing odd socks.
"I hate leaving London" said the worlds only consulting detective, "The provinces are so soulless."
"I take it you don't visit your folks often then."
"I'm better than Mycroft." John was struck by how pained his companion looked. "It doesn't suit his style. I just forget to remember."
"I would've thought it'd suit Mycroft, lording it over the Welsh peasantry and all."
Sherlock glanced at John and smirked. "You would have thought so. I think he finds mummy disturbing. He can't look after her."
Later they sat in silence in the near empty carriage. John could see the tension, which had tightened every muscle in the detectives face, slip away with every mile between them and Jim Moriarty's hunting ground. Whatever he might say, Sherlock did seem glad to leave London.
The taller man's eyes were closed and John had been shamelessly watching him sleep peacefully, when Sherlock spoke again.
"Thank you"
"Thank you? For what?"
"The stuff in the swimming pool and...for y'know sticking around."
John almost mentioned that he hadn't had much choice this time. He stopped himself feeling, perhaps, it wasn't the best thing for his companions sensibilities..
"Thank you" he said instead. Sherlock didn't ask him to clarify himself.
The trip by train was only a couple of hours and most of is was spent in an exhausted silence. Sherlock had walked up the carriage to call hiss brother and John stared out the window as they rushed past Reading. He continued to watch the country rushing past as Sherlock returned and the train passed Swindon then Bristol and then...
"We're here" said Sherlock and the alighted into the dilapidated Victorian vision which was Newport station. A shiny, black car met them out front. A driver, John was quietly impressed. It wasn't every flatmate who's parents had a chauffeur.
They talked even less in the car; partly due to the presence of the driver; partly because Sherlock seemed so unsettled. John thought his parents must be truly terrifying to elicit such emotions from his friend. A man, John mused, who had seemed fearless twenty-four hours ago and now seemed to posses a brooding anxiety.
John had been expecting a looming, black manse, so he was puzzled when the car stopped in a small, back-street. A row of neat terraced houses stretched in either direction and a track-suited man shuffled, smoking, along the other side of the street.
"We're here" said Sherlock again.
"Here?"
"Yes" he said simply but the corners of his mouth twitched. John grabbed his bag and followed Sherlock through an iron gate. His parents front yard was both untidy and bountiful. It was filled with bright flowers, though John only recognised geraniums, and tiny indian looking statuetes. The paths cracks were chocka with dandylions and there was a stained glass man-in-the-moon in the front door.
"Not what you expected?" said Sherlock the corners of his lips twitching.